Healing Your Gut: Having A Healthy Microbiome and Immune System with Dr. Asia Muhammad

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Music.

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Every week I get on here and I say something like thank you for tuning in to balance black girl etc etc and I'm really trying not to repeat myself as much because I realized I do tend to say the same things over and over

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as humans we all say the same things over and over but when you have a podcast and when your words are recorded and shared and Amplified.

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It's even more noticeable when you say the same things over and over

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so I'm working on it I'm trying to incorporate new vocabulary into my life and maybe think of a new greeting and you know

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new ways of being but I don't know if that will be today so if you're new here or welcome to balance black girl if you're returning or welcome back to balance black girl.

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I started this podcast almost four years ago because frankly I am a wellness nerd I love learning about well-being and the different things that impact our well-being.

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Learning about science learning about how our bodies work and I wanted to learn those things from other black women because though I've Loved listening to podcasts for a decade now

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a lot of the

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older Wellness podcast that I was listening to that we're talking about certain topics just did not share enough perspectives from black women experts and many episodes later here we are.

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Today's episode truly captures the essence of why I started balance back road to begin with it is an OG Wellness student balanced black girl episode

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my favorite kind of episode and today we're talking about gut health and I know that may not sound like the sexiest Topic in the world but it's actually so.

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Incredibly important and that is because your gut health is truly the gateway to the rest of your body

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healthy digestive system is crucial for wellbeing because there isn't a single part of your body that isn't impacted by your gut health

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you've got Health can influence your immune system heart health brain health oral health blood sugar sleep patterns your mood and so much more

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and the gut is incredibly complex but it isn't something that many of us are taught about or talk about in Daily conversation and a lot of the content out there that centers around health and well-being either

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ignores it completely or talks about it in a really complex way that for most of us who

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aren't necessarily talking about the complex digestive system all day

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we may not necessarily understand I know I don't because I'm still learning about a lot of this stuff so I wanted to bring a conversation to the podcast that really helps us begin to understand this complex system in our body.

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In 2020 and in 2021 I experienced some

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issues with my own gut health because I had a few rounds of antibiotics for unrelated reasons and it really impacted so many things in my body but especially around my digestion and it really inspired me to start learning more about my microbiome like why did that happen why did it happen after I you know took those antibiotics and a short period of Time how are these things all connected was the issues that I was experiencing with my oral health

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related to my gut health at the time I didn't

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know if that was the case but over time I've learned that yes a lot of those things are really connected and I've learned a lot about why we should be mindful of gut health when it comes to Healing.

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So today's episode is kind of a gut health 101 so that we can take a look at this complex system and start understanding it just a little bit better I want to say today's conversation is not medical advice.

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Any means and with something as complex as digestion and as the gut there can be a lot going on there and so this is definitely not meant to be medical advice if anyone is experiencing issues with their gut.

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Or

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You know treatment if someone does have an ailment related to gut health it's really meant to be an overview so that we can start understanding how this

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element of our body works better so please talk to your doctor before making any dietary or supplemental changes.

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Our Guest today is dr. Asia Muhammed dr. Asia values the power of lifestyle modifications to achieve Optimal Health.

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She uses evidence-based science based medicine to provide individualized attention to those in her practice

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as a naturopathic doctor she utilizes nutrition exercise supplementation Botanical medicine and mind-body therapies she has a special interest in gastroenterology mind-body medicine and Stress Management

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as increasing research demonstrates the role of stress in disease

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she has received additional training in gastroenterology and mind-body therapies including hypnosis guided imagery biofeedback autogenic training and progressive muscle relaxation

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this episode is probably one that you want to listen to you a few times because I like I said it's really a gut health

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101 we talked about the different microbiomes in our body we talk about good bacteria versus bad bacteria

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daily practices many people can do to be more mindful of their gut health how our gut health can impact our mental health how Liver Health and the body's ability to detox is related to all of this and so much more

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doctor Asia has a wealth of knowledge and experience and I'm so honored to have her on the show today so let's get into today's.

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Thank you for having me I'm super excited about this podcast I'm super excited to be here I love your content love the work that you do so getting to have you on the podcast is such an honor.

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Yay thanks for having me on am excited to talk crap today literally

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literally absolutely so the first thing I would love to kick things off by learning a little bit more about you you know why we're having this conversation it's spraying summer is quickly approaching

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what is your favorite produce item that's currently in season like what do you love to eat this time of year.

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I love like dandelion greens because you can't find them any other time of year obviously and so.

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I think it's really wonderful when I go to the store and I can just buy a bunch of dandelions and saute them so that's my jam like in the spring summer time love it and you like to saute them you said.

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Oh yeah I saute them just like regular like spinach with like some onion garlic and like spices and then I'll usually eat them with something else but I just love how bitter they are

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so that's why I really enjoyed them and like arugula is a bitter green but I feel like dandelion is one of the most bitter greens so.

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Love that I'll have to try that because normally when I have dandy-lion I'll have it like in tease or different drinks something I've eaten oh yeah it's extremely bitter my best friend loves it and she Compares it to broccoli rabe which I've never actually had so you have to try that

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okay yeah I'll try it out and I'll let you know what I think of it okay.

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So I'm excited to have you on the podcast today to talk about gut health right now on the podcast we're focused on different modalities of healing.

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And when I think about understanding what's happening with our bodies with our digestion healing our gut.

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Can be a really big gateway to Healing the rest of the body so first I would love to hear what made you interested in naturopathic medicine and what brought you to this field of study.

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Yeah you know I started out

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in Tennessee undergrad there and I was like science major and so I knew I wanted to be in the healthcare world I just didn't know what capacity and my mom growing up would always Prime Us in the way that parents Prime their kids and she's like oh you make a great heart surgeon which I don't even know how she

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The Gleam that you know it's like what is she what is she see and so I just think it's what she wanted right and so I knew I would be in medicine and I love the human body.

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So I went to school this idea that I would probably be some type of surgeon or working in cardiovascular medicine

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and I remember was it my sophomore year of undergrad or maybe my early junior year I was like shadowing all these doctors prepping for MCAT and I just

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remember thinking like this cannot be what medicine is

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because I grew up in a household where we did not take medications that wasn't the norm for me and so I grew up in a household where if something was happening my mom had a cabinet full of teas or a cabinet full of herbs and I didn't have my first ibuprofen.

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Until I was like 22 wow yeah and so I can count on one hand how many times I've actually taken.

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Medications previous to like having the ibuprofen and being a kid and so I just didn't grow up with that mindset of Something's Wrong take a pill unless it was something very serious

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and so when I went to school I thought oh yeah I'll just be like do be a doctor but practice more holistic medicine.

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And then I went to school and in Tennessee you don't see any naturopathic doctors you pretty much see them on the West Coast or East Coast or some Southern States but

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it was rare and I don't think there is one there now a few years ago it's hard to find that type of doctor you see chiropractors are so my the only thing I saw was MD's Indio so I went and Shadow no bunch

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and I just remember thinking like this is not how I want to practice they were seeing like 60 patients a day 40 patients a day

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if it was a surgical procedure roll one enroll them outro the next one and I just remember thinking like there's no conversation there's no real humanness to this.

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And so I was sick one semester in school and my mom had this book by this woman and it's just like a flipchart book she'd had our entire lives I guess her way of figuring out what was wrong when there was an issue with one of her kids.

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And it just list out like conditions you may have so it'll say headache it'll say sinus it'll say asthma whatever and every page has like a little section like it could be this

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these are some natural things you could do here are some even crystals you know that you can use or Homeopathy your foot massage and I just thought it was the

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who'll is book and when I was sick this quarter in school I was like flipping through to see what I could take.

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And I just remember thinking like I would love to do what this person does and so I looked at the book and it's at like ND and I was like what is that and so I Googled it I was really had an epiphany and I say this all the time like it's the one time in my life where I felt like.

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Like this is what I'm going to do like everything felt aligned so I Googled the school I look at their curriculum.

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I decided like this is what I'm going to do my mom was like are you sure are you sure they had no idea what naturopathic medicine is and a lot of folks still.

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Went to the school and they have been just kind of rocking and rolling ever since I did four years at the school and then I did a three-year residency after that focused in g.i. with to gastroenterologist so that's kind of why I focus a lot one GI conditions I'm just really familiar with that.

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Mmm okay there's a couple of things that I would love to like so yeah first thank you so much for sharing your story

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to it just sounds like this path was definitely very aligned you know even you have that seed planted early of going into medicine even though you didn't you know become a cardiologist right right so being in medicine

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seeing how your mom took that approach to more holistic health sounds like it really had a profound impact on you.

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I definitely know that it did and I do think that had I been raised.

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The different mentality around health I probably would have been conventional medicine but a lot of conventional medicine now is branching towards functional medicine so I think that you know I would have eventually ended up in this space either way but yeah.

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Yeah yeah and can you explain to us kind of the difference between ND and MD or functional and more mainstream medicine

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so when you look at MD or allopathic medicine versus ND naturopathic medicine.

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So the premise is really based in how the patient is assessed and treated right and so

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when you look at allopathic medicine it's a great system of medicine relative to acute disease pathology diagnosis and so forth but the treatment relies heavily on prescriptions procedures surgeries.

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And then with naturopathic medicine or functional medicine which is kind of like this umbrella term it essentially looks at the person it's like a whole person right so you're not segmented out so it's not like oh

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you have I don't know rheumatoid arthritis you need to just focus your attention with.

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A rheumatologist right it's like oh there's also probably some gut issue there so let's look at the whole person so there's more of a

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Flynn's on the entire all the organ systems as a whole and then the treatment primarily relies on huge part of treatment is prevention

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and also other tools not just prescriptions because in some states in dese to have prescription rights

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but it also relies on diet on environment on stressors Mind Body medicine acupuncture is a huge part of naturopathic medicine Botanicals Homeopathy some physical manipulation so it just kind of encompasses more modalities.

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For healing a person I see yeah yeah so looking at what's going on in the whole body instead of one specific set of symptoms yeah exactly exactly

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yeah wonderful so I would love to transition to talk a little bit more about gut Hill you know that's a term that I think has.

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Become a part of the broader vocabulary more so in recent years than before

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yeah I know I at least see a ton of like gut health content on social media Tick Tock specifically every other tick tock

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really got Health yeah and maybe that's just my algorithm because I'm uh a wellness nerd butt

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you know five years ago you just you didn't see that yeah those conversations happening but I would love to take a step back and understand what we mean when we say gut health so what.

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All comprises gut health and why is gut health so important for all of us to understand

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yeah so gut health comprises or I'll say I usually say the Rooter to the Tooter so I'll say

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starting from your mouth to your bottom in like that entirety of your guts one long tube that's connected it's just segmented in different ways relative to its function and also its form as well and so when you think about our gut.

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You know the the main purpose of our digestive system is to digest and assimilate nutrients from our food and to eliminate what we don't need or AKA poop out our waste.

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And the gut is so Central to.

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Health and disease because we know that when people have chronic inflammation chronic diseases autoimmune diseases there's always some.

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Happening in the gut right so it's not the gut is the root of everything because there's a huge thing that's like the gut is the

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cause of all disease and I'm not sure if I agree with that completely but I do think there is a lot of Truth in there because when you look at chronic disease you see a lot of gut issues dysbiosis where you have.

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An imbalance in bacterial like populations and so you may have more of the problematic bacteria than you do the positive bacteria and bacteria actually produce their own types of.

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Nicole's that can affect our gut that can affect our entire system that can kind of.

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Create these cycles of inflammation that continue inflammation in the body and also.

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They can affect our brain our mood held so the gut is actually linked to pretty much all of our organ systems when you look at the literature around any type of chronic disease you typically see some type of gut occurrence happening and so I think that

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there's a lot of emphasis on our gut and I think that there should be because you know when you look at the literature they used to say we have more bacteria in our gut that we have body cells and.

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You know the new literature that's coming out is saying maybe we have just as many bacteria in our gut

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as we do body cells with that is still speaks to the importance of our microbiome and intestinal health and overall health

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Mmm Yeah and can we Define microbiome because and because yeah kind of.

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Multiple microbiomes going on right there's like the oral microbiome that microbiome if you have a vagina like the badging yeah biome what do those different things mean

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so your microbiome is essentially a community of microbes right so they could include bacteria parasite virus

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fungal components yeast and so they essentially supposed to be a symbiotic relationship of all these different microbes that essentially

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function to keep us at our optimal state will say and so you have microbiomes all over you have a microbiome in your lungs you have microbiome

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pretty much in many of your organ systems your skin you know like you said your vaginal microbiome your gut microbiome.

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Oral microbiome there so many like new microbiomes being discovered is so interesting like all the bacteria we have all over us and inside of us all the time and are those microbiomes

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connected like if someone starts experiencing may be an imbalance in the oral microbiome could that impact the gut microbiome and other parts of the body.

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100% yes the oral microbiome does impact the rest of the the gut

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the oral microbiome also impacts our cardiovascular system and we have studies showing how when people have bacterial infections in their mouth it actually can trigger bacterial infections of the cardiovascular system which is a really serious

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consequence and so you also see connections with the microbiome in the gut and the lungs I was actually just writing a piece on you got long axis and we know that

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microbiome in the gut can actually affect the bacterial populations in the lung and the microbiome of the long actually resembles the microbiome of the gut when I say resemble I mean like.

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Some of the bacterial families are the same in terms of what you predominantly see hanging out there you see that repeated in our respiratory tree as well wow.

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This is amazing just to hear how.

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Isn't that is yes I know I know all these bacteria on us all the time like inside of us and we can't even see them like I think it's just kind of the uniqueness and the beauty of.

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Being Human and just being an organism in this world because so many other systems apples have their own microbiome you know so many things have their all my vibe oh yeah.

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And to that point you know it sounds like our microbiomes can kind of communicate with other microbiomes like that apple and we then yeah

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take on the microbiome of that apple

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well I don't know if that's accurate per se because you know we have a lot of mechanisms in the body to neutralize bacteria coming in right and so if you eat an apple that has back

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Tyrion and if you have sufficient stomach acid typically you don't really don't pass those bacteria down.

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And then you have pancreatic enzymes you have bile which is from your liver that can also

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break apart or neutralize or kill bacteria in the gut and keep populations in control so there's so many built-in mechanisms to prevent

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you know an excessive amount of bacteria entering the body because bacteria are everywhere right so that's an interesting like thought that I've never had anybody like accent or talk about that but that is really interesting

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just in there just like yeah I was just thinking like a stencil that's that's really cool thought because like so many people eat like raw foods that haven't been

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you cleaned off right and there's a different microbial population

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between foods that are wrong foods that are not raw foods that haven't been like washed all say in foods that have been washed so I think that's something that needs further thought I think you might be onto something actually.

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Yeah interesting.

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So one of the things that you also mentioned was just inflammatory responses and how that is related to.

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Gut how we talk a little bit more about what causes inflammation and some of the kind of consequences of inflammation in the body yeah.

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Information is actually a normal and natural occurrence in the human body it's just like everything else in life there just needs to be balanced right the issue is that we just live in such a world in the time now that there's more

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driving towards Pro inflammation than anti-inflammatory so it's not really a balanced mechanism for Manning humans and

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when you think about inflammation there many different factors that.

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Play into inflammation many different cytokines or chemokines was you're basically the cell chemicals that stimulate processes that up regulate certain factors that contribute further to inflammation so.

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That sounds like a mouthful but they're all these like different.

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Interleukin 6 so your tnf or different nf-kb like they're different things you can peruse in the literature to deduce where inflammation is coming from but you look at the gut

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specifically.

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When you have a disc biotic gut like you have imbalances in certain bacterial families and there's not a test or a well there are tests there's not a symptom I'll say sign or symptom to say yes you have dysbiosis people will say oh

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I have skin issues I must have dysbiosis it could totally be gut related we could also be not related to the gut but there's not a way to actually identify somebody that has the dysbiosis.

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And when you think about bacterial populations we know that when you have certain types of bacteria in your gut

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they can actually release certain chemicals from their cell walls that actually will

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can permeate into the gut lining and stimulate our immune system which kind of hangs out right beneath our gut lining so the immune system

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of the gut it's multifold it's in the tissue but it's also underneath the tissue and so when you have like these

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molecules called LPS which you can read about my LPS kind of gets out of the bacteria goes into the lining can stimulate the immune lining there and that just kind of revs up this cycle of inflammation in the body and we know that

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LPS is kind of like a light switch for inflammation so we have no effect iria our main source of that.

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And you have dysbiosis and you have these types of gram-negative bacteria in your gut

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s actually continue this cycle of inflammation and I've seen people who have non GI related issues like they're not gassy they're not bloated they don't have diarrhea they don't have constipation.

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But they have unexplained Auto undiagnosed autoimmune disease meaning they go to the rheumatologist and they're like yeah something's happening but we don't have a solid diagnosis for you but yeah your joint paying maybe because of this autoimmune process we're seeing

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and we'll just work on gut protocols I don't even do stuff for inflammation I'll just do gut Focus protocols wow.

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Just kind of goes to show how interconnected our bodies are where those those you know symptoms you not even seem related but yet making one tweak.

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Exactly exactly exactly.

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I think it's so powerful also in patients can see that and they see how their body is so connected and I think we often times segment.

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Our body and say oh if I have joint problems I need to see a rheumatologist if I have you know

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like headaches I need to see a neurologist and it could also be just something got related so I love to start off really really slow and just layer things on to see kind of

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how the body responds because the body is really intelligent and it's always trying to heal like that's kind of like so many a built-in resilient mechanism for us

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I was just writing this paper on fractals which are these kind of like patterns that repeat at different scales right so you can see fractals in life.

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A link you see a little line that branches off into another line that keeps branch and just like a tree trunk they just keep branching and it looked that the smaller parts look like the bigger parts and so if you think about

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like our cardiovascular system when you have like a artery that gets blocked

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the body will literally form another pathway called angiogenesis to create a new vessel

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because it's continually trying to keep us going like we are always trying to be our optimal cells and I think that that's evident in the gut as well like the gut cells that.

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Absorb nutrition absorb our nutrients from our food they're called like the veal I which are like these finger-like projections in the gut.

00:23:57.917 --> 00:24:04.725
But if you zoom in on each V Li there's another V Li hanging out there's like there's just it just kind of keeps repeating in the purpose is to make.

00:24:04.731 --> 00:24:18.697
So much space for absorption so the body has no reason not to be its best self it's kind of beautiful when you think about it in that capacity but our bodies are always working with us even if it doesn't seem like a our bodies are just amazing.

00:24:18.730 --> 00:24:28.482
Yes they are and I understand things like this that can also help us show our bodies a bit more grace.

00:24:29.191 --> 00:24:36.863
When we think about all the things our body is doing to Keep Us Alive and to stay in balance it is incredible yeah.

00:24:36.897 --> 00:24:43.381
It really is incredible I wish there was like some class or lecture or something about how.

00:24:43.765 --> 00:24:49.728
Resilient our body is and how we are always seeking homeostasis and.

00:24:49.860 --> 00:24:54.355
I don't know I just am obsessed with this kind of concept so so interesting.

00:24:54.703 --> 00:25:02.619
I would love to also talk a little bit more about immune function in the gut because that was something that you mentioned

00:25:02.535 --> 00:25:11.630
yeah something that I'm curious about and it could be too early to tell there may not necessarily be research about this but I'm curious if there's a correlation between

00:25:11.627 --> 00:25:16.437
gut health and covid outcomes like I would be curious to see.

00:25:16.678 --> 00:25:29.428
Maybe patients who had covid people who are able to maybe recover quickly and not have long-term symptoms what did their gut health look like compared to people who have more severe outcomes have you seen any.

00:25:29.767 --> 00:25:35.801
Huh yeah there is research that actually a gastroenterologist that just presented a presentation on

00:25:35.771 --> 00:25:44.713
the difference in the microbiome so between like more severe covid sufferers and less severe and when I think the VR mean like worse outcomes right and so.

00:25:44.738 --> 00:25:57.344
You do find more dysbiosis and more of those kind of funky passage or funky bacteria won't say pathogens but funky bacteria hanging out in the gut and people with more severe covid outcome so you know and it speaks to.

00:25:57.512 --> 00:26:02.412
Like I said everything being connected but also the capacity of immune function in the gut

00:26:02.328 --> 00:26:09.083
and we know people say like oh most of your immune system is in your gut but I think that's just kind of a saying that people throw out there but it actually is true

00:26:09.026 --> 00:26:18.148
lot of your immune system is concentrated in your gut through your Gault which is kind of gut Associated lymphoid tissue you have like a lining of immune cells underneath your

00:26:18.001 --> 00:26:25.422
intestinal lining so think of your intestinal tract as a tube around the tube like insulation around the tube there's like a few layers there

00:26:25.185 --> 00:26:33.065
one is a mucous layer which is the first layer the second layer is your cell layer and then underneath that cell there you have come he's all these immune cells and its really

00:26:33.053 --> 00:26:47.072
amazing how the body has built an all these mechanisms to pretty much protect us right because it pretty much knows their world we live in we're going to encounter things that are not beneficial to our organism so it's kind of built in this security guard system along the entire gut.

00:26:47.114 --> 00:26:54.679
The kind of check things like your tonsils in your mouth it's like all these checkpoints to ensure that we are living our optimal lives and

00:26:54.667 --> 00:27:02.565
so when you think about covet you do see different gut microbiome profiles and different amounts of different types of bacteria.

00:27:02.688 --> 00:27:07.354
And people with like portending worse outcomes from covid wow.

00:27:07.595 --> 00:27:13.305
The fact that in immune cells make up an entire layer.

00:27:13.707 --> 00:27:22.910
Is so fascinating I didn't know I didn't know that yeah credible it really is incredible and that's that autoimmune picture so when you have.

00:27:23.159 --> 00:27:32.570
Increased intestinal permeability they called leaky gut what happens is light all of these kind like unwanted compounds are not actually getting into this system per se.

00:27:32.621 --> 00:27:41.356
But what they do is stimulate that immune cell layer kind of underneath the gun so you kind of have continual stimulation of your immune system and it should not be on tin all.

00:27:41.812 --> 00:27:44.102
It's kind of like a car like our cars.

00:27:44.234 --> 00:27:52.807
Go from 0 but they had to go up to maybe 160 right but nobody ever drives at 160 we pretty much stay between like at the max 60 70 80

00:27:52.678 --> 00:28:01.143
and so he think about if you're constantly running your car on 160 I mean it's going to burn out just because it's there does not mean you need to express it that much

00:28:01.077 --> 00:28:14.745
if I think about the gut that way and it's like yeah your immune system is present in your gut but it doesn't mean we can just kind of keep assaulting it and it's just going to respond the same every time he's going to get burnt out and you have expression of disease in different ways and so.

00:28:14.841 --> 00:28:24.693
I think the gut should be a part of every chronic disease healing protocol like if you go to the emergency room with some acute you know your gallbladder is about to burst I mean this is not the time for probiotics

00:28:24.663 --> 00:28:31.823
if you have an acute situation where you got a lot of so you got status kind of morbid but if there's something like that cut off your hair and got cut off or something.

00:28:31.838 --> 00:28:40.042
And you need to go to the hospital this is the time for surgery not probiotics but most Americans aren't suffering from acute disease we have chronic disease and I think the gut.

00:28:40.075 --> 00:28:44.192
It is just a neglected part in conventional medicine yeah.

00:28:44.261 --> 00:28:52.276
I would also like to talk about antibiotic use and and gut health because that yeah it seems like those two things are almost.

00:28:52.435 --> 00:29:01.728
At odds not to say this is not like an anti medicine anti antibiotic like if you have any cuddly like take take your antibiotics but

00:29:01.716 --> 00:29:10.325
I think it is important to understand you know what can happen if we do take antibiotics the impact that that can have on our gut health can you talk about that a little bit.

00:29:10.548 --> 00:29:15.511
Yeah and so there are different classes of antibiotics and different types of antibiotics oh

00:29:15.481 --> 00:29:26.656
the broad spectrum antibiotics their broad spectrum so they pretty much Target everything and they you have other antibiotics that are not broad spectrum they target specific types of bacteria and so there are like.

00:29:26.779 --> 00:29:30.130
Classes or grades up antibiotics that are.

00:29:30.217 --> 00:29:38.052
More or less safe the issue is it just depends on what kind of infection you're targeting because some of them won't cover it but we think about antibiotics in the gut.

00:29:38.302 --> 00:29:43.400
I don't really have like a love-hate relationship with antibiotics I just think that.

00:29:43.676 --> 00:29:53.653
If somebody has to take them they need to definitely be repopulating their gut with like beneficial bacteria of antibiotics can nuke your gut bacteria right and we have literature showing that.

00:29:53.704 --> 00:29:58.515
Once you reach a certain amount of antibiotics in your life in terms of using them at a certain rate.

00:29:58.539 --> 00:30:11.739
You actually increase your odds of certain diseases certain mental disorders and I think there was this paper demonstrating it at once you've had about six antibiotics or more you kind of have a higher risk for depression than somebody who's not taking those it doesn't mean you're going to develop that

00:30:11.718 --> 00:30:26.097
it just kind of puts you in different risk categories and I think it speaks to the importance of a microbiome because antibiotics work in one way they kill bacteria so we know what they're doing and we know the lasting effects are so many other associations with antibiotic use

00:30:26.086 --> 00:30:33.182
and I think that you know I see a lot of sibo cases and sibo small intestinal bacterial overgrowth and one of the

00:30:33.170 --> 00:30:47.199
easiest ways well I don't think it's easy to treat sibo but one of the conventional ways we look at sibo or eradicate excessive bacteria in the small intestine because most bacteria should be in your large intestine but when you have it in your small intestine you have all these symptoms

00:30:47.088 --> 00:30:54.590
but one of the ways we eradicate it is with antibiotics and one of the antibiotics we use is called its I Faxon and I actually love this one because it's a really.

00:30:54.686 --> 00:31:06.158
Safe antibiotic right it's not absorbed systemically as not nuking your gut bacteria and patients were like wait I bought antibiotics are bad so I think it's just relative but I'm definitely not a fan of like the.

00:31:06.209 --> 00:31:09.200
Long-term or chronic use of Z packs and.

00:31:09.206 --> 00:31:21.263
The Metros and other ones that are commonly easily just thrown at Patients I'm in my feelings because I've taken many Z packs in my in my day and I've had I've experienced some.

00:31:21.314 --> 00:31:31.031
It's not grayed out yeah but if someone has maybe had a history of antibiotic use or it's just coming off of antibiotics what can they do to repopulate the good bacteria

00:31:31.001 --> 00:31:37.116
so the simplest things are prebiotics and probiotics so I usually describe these as like if you had a garden.

00:31:37.131 --> 00:31:45.615
And you wanted to like add more dirt that would just be like adding probiotics if you wanted to actually cultivate the dirt that you already had

00:31:45.531 --> 00:31:54.455
you can just add fertilizer which would be like prebiotics right and so you can do both of them you a lot of people that I see when I run these School panels to look at their bacterial

00:31:54.317 --> 00:32:07.742
levels in the good a lot of their back to the beneficial bacteria will be really really low but they're still present so you can just feed them to help them grow and so I do a lot of prebiotics with folks so those are mostly like fruits vegetables your.

00:32:07.937 --> 00:32:11.550
You know you can do Prebiotic supplements you can do a green banana.

00:32:11.844 --> 00:32:25.602
Powder you can do like certain ways you can cook your rice and potatoes to make them more resistant starches so that your they essentially resist digestion so they pass through to your gut and your gut microbiome leg and Joe it's like fast food for them so they love to eat those in produce more

00:32:25.465 --> 00:32:31.130
and proliferate themselves so that I will I love to recommend like probiotics.

00:32:31.334 --> 00:32:38.800
So just kind of change around the microbiome and put more anti-inflammatory compounds there so it's not the end of the world

00:32:38.788 --> 00:32:45.399
but I would say start with prebiotics yeah yeah those good starchy Prebiotic Foods.

00:32:45.441 --> 00:32:49.963
Feed the bacteria and I love that you started with that started with kind of the food.

00:32:50.185 --> 00:32:58.785
Which is really empowering because everybody has to eat you Muslims eat smarter you know things that are going to help your body.

00:32:58.917 --> 00:33:00.945
Exactly yeah.

00:33:01.015 --> 00:33:11.424
So one of the things that you also mentioned was that people who maybe have a history of antibiotic use could potentially you know be in a disposition for

00:33:11.349 --> 00:33:17.474
experiencing depression I would love to talk about the link between gut health and mental health and what.

00:33:17.624 --> 00:33:22.677
Causes that right now there's a lot of conversation around like

00:33:22.512 --> 00:33:33.390
neurotransmitters being produced in the gut rise for like all your serotonin is made in the gut are gut makes Gaba which is like a neuro inhibitory neurotransmitter so it basically calms things down

00:33:33.234 --> 00:33:44.426
I got produces some dopamine yada yada so people will say like oh that means that there's this huge gut brain connection and there is but we don't actually know yet according to the science if those neurotransmitters are

00:33:44.406 --> 00:33:49.279
being producing the gut indirectly leaving the gut and going straight to the brain or if there were.

00:33:49.330 --> 00:34:04.078
Through the vagus nerve which is a huge nerve innervating the gut and kind of stimulating changes there but there is a huge gut brain connection and when you look at the science around folks with anxiety depression schizophrenia lots of like mental and mood disorders.

00:34:04.129 --> 00:34:12.693
A lot of them do have gut dysbiosis and there are small studies and large studies with use of probiotics or just kind of prebiotics supplementation

00:34:12.664 --> 00:34:19.688
and how they have been able to subjectively improve some of their like Mentor mood score outcome index.

00:34:19.748 --> 00:34:26.404
Four points and so I think there's a huge brand gut connection I do think it's a little bit more.

00:34:26.428 --> 00:34:33.300
The conversation should be more granular because I think it can be a little reckless also right if somebody has like serious mental.

00:34:33.342 --> 00:34:41.924
Mood disorder and they don't want to take medications and they've read all this literature me like I can just heal my gut and life goes on and I just think that that's a little misleading but.

00:34:41.966 --> 00:34:51.520
I do think that in anybody like I said with any chronic disease there has to be some emphasis on the gut when you think about people with schizophrenia there's some interesting literature on schizophrenia and people.

00:34:51.589 --> 00:35:00.460
Eating gluten and in some small settings they found that removing gluten from the diet of schizophrenic sand many cases can reverse a lot of their symptoms.

00:35:00.475 --> 00:35:11.811
And there's published studies demonstrating this and gluten is something we're eating right it's not something we're breathing in when you can breathe I guess you can breathe in if you're around in like a big Bakery you can kind of actually be irritated with gluten.

00:35:11.854 --> 00:35:21.849
Just my kind of being in the environment but most gluten we have in our body is coming from eating breads or pastas or you know I don't know pies whatever has like flour in it you're going to have gluten in it.

00:35:21.891 --> 00:35:25.963
Wheat flour you're going to have gluten in it and so we look at these studies they

00:35:25.960 --> 00:35:34.578
eliminate gluten out of these folks diet and their mental health significantly improves so there is some correlation right with what we eat how it impacts our gut.

00:35:34.710 --> 00:35:39.970
And our brain and we know gluten is a huge trigger for leaky gut which makes your gut more.

00:35:40.094 --> 00:35:48.037
Permeable right so everybody's got is leaking it should be leaky because we need to absorb our food and our nutrition but the issue if it's too leaky than you have

00:35:48.034 --> 00:35:50.692
kind of like everybody and they mama just trying to get out

00:35:50.617 --> 00:35:58.983
into the system and see what's happening and explore you know it's like when it's warm outside like I want to be outside too so I get it I get the vibe but it's just

00:35:58.926 --> 00:36:10.326
gluten is a huge trigger for making the sales more permeable so that you continually stimulate those immune cells and kind of release other types of compounds in the bloodstream so I definitely think that

00:36:10.206 --> 00:36:16.331
the gut is linked wide F we know that the guy is linked with mental health I think the conversation has just be a little bit more

00:36:16.256 --> 00:36:25.459
granular that makes sense yeah having that Nuance there where it's sounds like it's a piece of the puzzle but that correlation is not causation

00:36:25.420 --> 00:36:34.164
right right right there you go yeah yeah so we can't be too Reckless but even just the the findings that you mentioned are so so interesting.

00:36:34.170 --> 00:36:47.730
Very interesting they're very interesting so I was kind of shocked when I saw that but I just I wish we had like all the money in the world to kind of do more research and all these areas it's just you know we're really limited yeah that makes sense.

00:36:47.737 --> 00:36:56.607
My goodness I feel like we've covered so much ground already just in the importance of gut health and how interconnected our bodies are

00:36:56.541 --> 00:37:03.620
I would love to just talk more about kind of practices and habits that we can Implement to support our gut health

00:37:03.563 --> 00:37:13.198
I'm sure if someone has maybe an ailment or a certain condition and that's going to be more specific but for the everyday person you know what are some things that we can do to help.

00:37:13.213 --> 00:37:15.449
Bring our guts into.

00:37:15.941 --> 00:37:24.766
I typically like to start really basic and that is going to the bathroom and so I like to have people focus on just

00:37:24.601 --> 00:37:34.371
initially healthy bowel movements and that's with anybody that has more Funk multifunction but more like kind of lower level GI complaints like gas bloating constipation

00:37:34.296 --> 00:37:42.293
indigestion and now that's not for people who have like Crohn's or colitis but it's different kind of caliber of GI disease but when you have

00:37:42.254 --> 00:37:49.351
it's kind of basic GI complaints the first key is going to the bathroom a lot of folks like I'm so bloated and bloating can be so many things.

00:37:49.771 --> 00:37:56.472
The number one GI cost for gas and bloating is actually constipation because when you have ton of bacteria sitting around your colon.

00:37:56.532 --> 00:38:07.518
You got poop just hanging out there the bacteria eat the poop like dessert and they produce all this gas and you're bloated so the biggest thing is just go to the bathroom every day so I like to encourage folks to

00:38:07.461 --> 00:38:16.322
first thing in the morning have something on the tummy usually water because I don't really I don't know people's eating habits aren't there fast and yet he had it so I'll just do basic guidelines and I'll say.

00:38:16.409 --> 00:38:21.696
The first thing you want to do is have a full glass of water you can put some tea in there some limit whatever you want to put in there

00:38:21.675 --> 00:38:34.669
the purpose is not necessarily the water to push things out but just the water the stretch the stomach and that's the gastrocolic reflex so it basically sends a signal to the brain and say hey there's something in the tummy let's empty out the colon to get ready for whatever they're putting in.

00:38:34.774 --> 00:38:44.130
And then actually stimulates motility and the colon to kind of get poop out so that's kind of a habit to a tin and you may not notice anything immediately but you have to be consistent.

00:38:44.190 --> 00:38:55.239
So that's something really simple one to the bathroom every single day I like to encourage folks to eat a well-balanced diet and right now there's this huge like meat.

00:38:55.317 --> 00:39:03.647
Heavy kind of focus like I don't eat vegetables they're anti-human you know these vegetables are all bad kind of I which I don't know how I feel about that.

00:39:04.013 --> 00:39:15.980
What I'll say is you know the number one source of fiber is fruits and vegetables you don't find Fiber and meat products so it sounds a little silly to me just kind of first hearing it cuz I'm like how are you moving your vows and I would love to know how these folks.

00:39:16.040 --> 00:39:25.027
With their bowel habits are like so I think that adding in just quality fruits and vegetables if you hate fruits and vegetables that's okay you can just do a fiber powder which I often will act as you know

00:39:24.952 --> 00:39:37.639
lifestyle modifications are their behavior modifications are they are the hardest modifications to make and I'm not going to tell somebody why I don't want to see you because you don't want to eat fruits and vegetables like okay fine do what you want but we got to get your bowels moving let's add in.

00:39:37.709 --> 00:39:50.855
Some Fiber and see how that changes the picture but natural fiber is your fruits your vegetables so I do hydration also on top of the morning water just kind of consistently drinking fluids because when your body is dehydrated.

00:39:50.861 --> 00:39:58.272
Your Skin's dehydrate it you will pull it from your colon right that's kind of a huge source for like water Exchange in the body.

00:39:58.360 --> 00:40:05.709
So your body will pull it from your colon which means that if you have stools hanging out there the stools are now going to be drier and harder because the water is not.

00:40:05.751 --> 00:40:15.197
What's another reason to take fiber because fiber keeps the water also in the bow so it's not just about bulking the stools and moving them but fiber also keeps water attached to the bow

00:40:15.086 --> 00:40:17.321
and keeps it in a nice shape so it comes out.

00:40:17.355 --> 00:40:26.207
Miss move form and it's not hard to pass but staying hydrated and drinking water throughout the day is a big tool also for continuing to move the bowels.

00:40:26.339 --> 00:40:29.366
So those are the basic steps is like making sure your bowels are moving.

00:40:29.427 --> 00:40:44.094
I also will have people do like just many abdominal massages like working their way around their belly to kind of stimulate the colonic muscles to say hey get some movement in but that's like the basic place I star and then I just kind of layer on after that depending on.

00:40:44.307 --> 00:40:50.432
What they have going on I love love love how accessible those practices are of like.

00:40:50.438 --> 00:40:57.679
Hydrating wow getting some Fiber in whichever way we can get it love the no judgment approach of like if we need to start with

00:40:57.541 --> 00:41:07.617
powder or a cilium or something and work our way up to vegetables exactly we can do that exactly man yep those things are just the foundation of everything.

00:41:07.884 --> 00:41:08.985
Exactly

00:41:08.830 --> 00:41:23.200
it's so simple and you be amazed that the patients I see and think we inherently know right that what a good diet is I mean not all the aspects but I just it's so interesting that the power of the mind and how

00:41:23.161 --> 00:41:25.640
we know what's good for us but we still.

00:41:25.916 --> 00:41:37.856
We are averse to it right for whatever reason and I think it's the power of suggestion I was listening to dr. McGregor once or maybe I was reading his book I don't know but he was talking about how he thinks that the number one

00:41:37.745 --> 00:41:47.587
the number one cause of obesity or being overweight it's not really like diet or lifestyle factors its advertisements right the power of suggestion.

00:41:47.728 --> 00:41:56.139
On our mind is incredible right and we see things around us that look appetizing and like I was talking to a friend and

00:41:56.064 --> 00:42:03.656
they're all about the new chips that are out the new flavor chips the new rap chips all the chips they have to take off chips and it's like

00:42:03.608 --> 00:42:11.650
where do you find these things that right there's they see so many ads all the time at the store and it's like I got to have it and I think a lot of times were LED astray by.

00:42:11.683 --> 00:42:25.487
Our own mind and so I don't know where I was going with that I'm just rambling at this point what did you ask me if we were just talking about this is just good behavior change related yeah our gut health and those habits but I think even what you're saying.

00:42:25.619 --> 00:42:27.593
Can be so prevalent.

00:42:27.635 --> 00:42:37.820
Slightly different example but just in terms of the power of persuasion when I think about social media and I think about influence and I think about all of the things that were influenced.

00:42:38.357 --> 00:42:43.032
By I mean I would be so curious to see in terms of.

00:42:43.047 --> 00:42:53.808
Spending habits for the average person compared to 10 years ago when we were influenced far less yeah those patterns have changed purely because we have to see it and we can see someone

00:42:53.778 --> 00:43:03.278
talk about it it's really powerful yeah it's so powerful so a lot of times when I see like chronic GI cases like I.

00:43:03.320 --> 00:43:10.435
I'm big into like mind-body medicine and I've done like hypnotherapy training and whatnot so I love like adding in layering in mental.

00:43:10.531 --> 00:43:18.681
Affirmations or just kind of like all even do like custom hypnosis scripts for people and send them to them so they can listen to them every day because you have to believe that you can.

00:43:18.822 --> 00:43:30.357
Heal or improve before you actually get to that space as if you don't believe it it's just not going to happen and there's some way you're going to create resistance in your own life to prevent it from happening and you see that all the time when people

00:43:30.327 --> 00:43:36.460
you know have like I think folks who have like chronic I don't know autoimmune disease and then everything in our life

00:43:36.413 --> 00:43:47.695
is around that right they were t-shirts that affirm the disease they have bumper stickers on the car that say this is who I am I am lupus right that's not true and so I think that that's also like

00:43:47.648 --> 00:43:55.293
that mental aspect of us staying in sickness and that's not obviously how people stay sick but I just think that we have to always.

00:43:55.488 --> 00:44:05.772
Also outside of taking supplements or taking meds or doing what we should be doing recommended per our doctor but work on our mentality around healing in disease States.

00:44:05.940 --> 00:44:10.246
Absolutely yeah that that mindset component to Healing.

00:44:10.540 --> 00:44:21.697
Sounds like it should be as much of the protocol as the diet and lifestyle modifications like it's another piece of the puzzle yep I agree 100% 100%.

00:44:22.747 --> 00:44:29.115
What are some of the mindfulness practices that you like to practice yourself and that you recommend

00:44:29.049 --> 00:44:36.947
yeah so I'm always like I'm really bad like to answer this because I'm always experimenting on myself I just downloaded this

00:44:36.800 --> 00:44:47.750
one hour dispenza meditation and so I read his book a couple maybe last year and somebody that I know suggested I tried this like Alchemist meditation out so.

00:44:48.134 --> 00:44:51.782
I've been trying that I do prayer as well.

00:44:51.897 --> 00:45:03.810
Something that I love to do something that is like a mindful practice for me is just waking up early and like sitting and let like hearing the birds seeing the sunrise like I just love that Vibe and I'll just have like an Earl Grey.

00:45:03.978 --> 00:45:13.199
Tea with some kind of milk that I love I just try to really focus on that moment and nothing else that I have during the day and so I think it's really great to have.

00:45:13.520 --> 00:45:18.780
Some type of mindfulness practice where you just sit and do that one thing.

00:45:18.867 --> 00:45:26.747
Absolutely that present is really beautiful yeah which dispenser was it breaking the habit of being yourself or

00:45:26.672 --> 00:45:38.315
becoming Supernatural or both of those so becoming Supernatural was the most recent one that I completed it and his website has all these like meditations you can like down low so I have.

00:45:38.555 --> 00:45:51.593
A ton of different types of meditations but that's when I've just been working on lately but it's an hour and it can be hard to sit through one hour meditation right because for me when I first started meditating is like 5 minutes and like okay I'm over that I need to go do something right it's just like my nerves

00:45:51.591 --> 00:45:53.673
it's like now it's.

00:45:53.967 --> 00:46:03.117
Therapeutic it's like who I can sit it for 15 20 30 40 minute meditation and I'm good so it's interesting when you are able

00:46:03.024 --> 00:46:13.397
evaluate yourself in that perspective because you're like dang I can't even sit for fifth Sisto for 15 minutes you know what I mean like what is going on with my life my nerves are so like I'm used to being so on the right or maybe it's like

00:46:13.349 --> 00:46:20.158
athd I don't know but it's like we should be able to sit with ourselves and be okay and a lot of people cannot and I think that's.

00:46:20.236 --> 00:46:29.439
It's an inside I think that all these symptoms are all these things we experience or just insight in our body trying to educate us so that we can kind of keep learning and moving on to the next phase so.

00:46:29.742 --> 00:46:35.858
I just think you got to reframe it yeah absolutely absolutely and to that point.

00:46:36.377 --> 00:46:46.093
Is there also a stress component when it comes to gut health and if someone is looking to heal their gut is there a Stress Management component to that as well.

00:46:46.108 --> 00:46:55.023
Totally because we know that when we're stressed we release certain hormones like we have higher circulating amounts of cortisol

00:46:54.967 --> 00:47:05.187
you know that cortisol actually can induce leaky gut and intestinal permeability and so if you're doing all these protocols but you work like a really high stress job or you have course stress management skills.

00:47:05.355 --> 00:47:15.090
You kind of like set yourself back or you're wasting money on supplements because they're not really going to do much and so yes there definitely should be some kind of Stress Management aspect.

00:47:15.123 --> 00:47:24.425
To all types of chronic disease that specifically with regard to that disease we even see folks who have like ulcerative colitis which is an autoimmune disease of the gut

00:47:24.413 --> 00:47:36.587
they'll say like like it's a lot of young women have it like in their 20s and 30s is when you see it kind of pink but a lot of these women are like in school or in college and they're like when I had a stressful exam coming up I go into a flare right.

00:47:36.692 --> 00:47:44.662
And granite they're not eating any differently they're not in a different environment and having added a new medication like there's no actual tangible trigger.

00:47:44.767 --> 00:47:57.949
For a flair for some people they literally know I know when I'm stressed I start flaring and they have actual physical organic disease processes that happen right there stools become more frequent so I had a girl

00:47:57.929 --> 00:48:07.195
that just came to my head who when I saw a few years ago had ulcerative colitis and I think they're working a really stressful job and I had this big project coming up

00:48:07.174 --> 00:48:15.207
and their bowels are fine so when I say fine like they go to the bathroom once a day every other day no blood no mucus no abdominal pain nothing.

00:48:15.267 --> 00:48:23.750
They have this stressful project this big project that's inducing a lot of stress the next thing you know they're in a flare flare for ulcerative colitis is.

00:48:23.819 --> 00:48:38.784
10 and 20 stores had a bloody stools every stool is urgent Gotta Go Gotta Go now when they go to the bathroom it feels like it's poo but it's just blood and mucus that comes out and you can actually do a colonoscopy on them and you see their intestines are like on fire so literally stress can induce.

00:48:38.925 --> 00:48:52.035
Inflammatory States and so it's so important to to look at the mine and I wish there were some Metric or some way we could actually like measure our mind like all these like kind of Step watches we wear that shows a like how many steps were taking or.

00:48:52.140 --> 00:48:59.795
You know how many calories we eat I wish there was some app that was tuned in to say You're really stressed out right now to go breathe or something to help us.

00:49:00.260 --> 00:49:03.333
I think we have to do that on our own until that's actually invented.

00:49:03.447 --> 00:49:11.831
Yeah yeah learning how to listen to our bodies and understanding because I think our bodies will give us kind of warning signs before we get to that point and

00:49:11.828 --> 00:49:17.700
learning about what those signs are for your body and how to mitigate them before it escalates to that level yeah.

00:49:17.725 --> 00:49:28.296
100% yep so I also really love your social media content love your Instagram I nerd out through the time I've been following you want while thanks

00:49:28.284 --> 00:49:37.920
I just love how informative and accessible your content is and lately I noticed that you've been sharing content related to Liver Health.

00:49:38.016 --> 00:49:49.209
The grout alcohol consumption how that also impacts our health so can write a little bit more about the correlation between liver function and gut health

00:49:49.206 --> 00:50:00.335
totally so the liver in the gutter like intimately connected and that's because you know some studies say like 75% but just to be modest I'll say 65 percent.

00:50:00.467 --> 00:50:04.683
Of the blood that flows into the liver is coming directly.

00:50:04.735 --> 00:50:14.019
From the gut and there's all these new studies coming out was just reading one that was published out of his like a few months ago about the gut liver axis and how

00:50:13.998 --> 00:50:17.179
you have got disease it actually.

00:50:17.347 --> 00:50:29.017
Impresses stress on the liver and your liver actually has its own built-in mechanism for stress because it's kind of it's honestly so beautiful because like the liver knows that it's gonna have to deal with a lot of crap.

00:50:29.113 --> 00:50:39.189
And so it has all of these extra immune sales present ready like already posted ready to go and so when we have this biases in our gut and it flows to the liver.

00:50:39.231 --> 00:50:48.524
The liver will increase its Coupe for sales which are a certain type of liver and immune cell a macrophage and the liver that essentially is like a security guard for the liver

00:50:48.504 --> 00:50:57.149
so litter already knows what's up but the issue is when we add in other factors that can stress at our liver even

00:50:57.110 --> 00:51:08.266
certain herbs certain medications right that stress the liver it just creates more inflammatory processes kind of possible damage to the liver that I think

00:51:08.255 --> 00:51:15.081
short-term you don't notice anything because it's a really resilient organ and the liver can actually regenerate itself is one of the only organs that can do that but

00:51:14.970 --> 00:51:24.128
long-term when you kind of have these chronic insult you see folks pop up with alteration their liver enzymes that are just kind of like a little mini snapshot to possibly.

00:51:24.207 --> 00:51:29.809
What's to come or they'll have like scarring of the liver which is more severe than just.

00:51:29.887 --> 00:51:36.902
Inflammation of the liver and so the liver is also connected to the gut because the liver makes bile and bile is a fluid that.

00:51:36.927 --> 00:51:48.498
We release when we eat fats and it helps to absorb are fat soluble vitamins like you're a your D you're eating your cake it also helps to regulate the bacteria in the gut and so they are intimately

00:51:48.414 --> 00:51:56.609
connective and I love talking about Liver Health because you can have liver disease and not have any symptoms at all wow.

00:51:56.750 --> 00:52:00.884
Yeah so how would you know that you have liver disease

00:52:00.801 --> 00:52:10.985
I mean it depends if you have regular blood work done a lot of times it's captured their some of your enzymes will be off in the doctor will say let's repeat these in a few weeks or 6 or 6 weeks

00:52:10.820 --> 00:52:17.989
in six weeks at their repeated and they are still abnormal they'll say oh let's send you for an ultrasound and they may say oh we see you have.

00:52:18.112 --> 00:52:21.608
I don't know fatty liver you have some scarring in your liver you know

00:52:21.578 --> 00:52:28.791
that's how they find it a lot of times you can have normal liver enzymes and have liver disease so it's really hard there was a study that came out.

00:52:28.852 --> 00:52:33.941
Discussing fatty liver disease which we are predicting now is going to be the number one reason for a liver transplant.

00:52:34.028 --> 00:52:39.252
And about a decade which is going to displace hepatitis C and alcoholism as a reasons for

00:52:39.240 --> 00:52:48.039
liver transplants and fatty liver non-alcoholic fatty liver is really due to just diet and lifestyle we know that when you have fatty liver disease.

00:52:48.126 --> 00:52:58.121
You can have fat in the liver causing inflammation because they do a biopsy and see ya the liver cells are inflamed in the liver enzymes are completely normal

00:52:58.118 --> 00:53:05.530
so it's just it's really puzzling and I don't know if there's like some new tool out now to actually assess it but you have different types.

00:53:05.770 --> 00:53:14.757
Scoring systems where you can plug in all these numbers and not just look at your liver enzymes and it will give you a picture but doctors don't use it I mean I wasn't trained to use that when I was training.

00:53:14.826 --> 00:53:23.210
And so it's a tool that I think is underutilized and like I said your liver you don't really feel pain in the liver if you feel pain in your upper right side is typically gallbladder

00:53:23.207 --> 00:53:34.004
unless your liver is like stretch so big that it's stretching the capsule it's in your liver is kind of contained in this capsule space if it stretches the capsule then you feel pain but usually that's only when somebody has

00:53:33.911 --> 00:53:40.990
like hepatitis like a really acute inflammation of the liver and like from virus or for something like something else that's happening.

00:53:41.095 --> 00:53:48.138
But you rarely have liver pain like I can probably count on one hand I've seen like thousands and thousands of patients how many people I've seen.

00:53:48.270 --> 00:53:56.221
With right-sided pain and we end up doing scans and blood work and their liver enzymes are like in the thousands and they should be in the double digits wow and.

00:53:56.228 --> 00:54:03.099
After a while they did end up trending down if it's like viral or if it's something I'm kind of acute poisoning incident but

00:54:03.070 --> 00:54:13.668
it's you don't really don't have liver symptoms so that's why it's like you have to stay on top of your blood work metabolic Health if somebody has weight issues if they have lipid issues that they have blood sugar issues

00:54:13.647 --> 00:54:20.186
you may have liver issues as well so kind of stay on top of those liver numbers yeah super important.

00:54:20.354 --> 00:54:25.767
Just the complexity it sounds like even of diagnosing yeah like that is mind-blowing.

00:54:25.899 --> 00:54:30.970
It's very it's very I had a woman that was in her 30s with cirrhosis of the liver.

00:54:31.292 --> 00:54:44.699
Once you have some roses you pretty much have 10 years to live right because your liver is like shriveled up like a raisin and it can't do performance jobs which then it stresses the rest of the system out and you have all these other consequences so it's really troubling to see that.

00:54:44.714 --> 00:54:46.616
And the young person.

00:54:46.677 --> 00:54:56.528
Yeah absolutely and are there some other are their practices and things that we can do to support Liver Health or things to incorporate in our jobs that support the liver.

00:54:57.056 --> 00:55:06.511
Totally so when it comes to the liver the liver loves vitamin C vitamin E zinc and loves it like some vitamin A vitamin A can actually too much vitamin A can.

00:55:06.644 --> 00:55:14.055
Can be damaging to the liver so I typically stick with like your vitamin C your zinc and vitamin E vitamin C foods are all kind of your fruits and vegetables right

00:55:13.944 --> 00:55:18.259
your vitamin E foods like your nuts and seeds and then your zinc

00:55:18.112 --> 00:55:30.880
kind of like your fish is or some of your protein sources so that's what I like to recommend folks start with like just diet-wise try to incorporate a diverse plant diet and like quality meat diet if you're eating meat.

00:55:30.968 --> 00:55:33.536
Pasture-raised Meats kind of wild caught.

00:55:33.686 --> 00:55:48.156
Fishes you can also take supplements but you just got to be careful sometimes because some vitamins get stored in some don't but outside of that you know but I think Botanicals are really great I love Burdock tea as a super gentle liver tea

00:55:48.009 --> 00:55:55.736
and I like milk thistle milk thistle is not good in a tea form you don't actually get the benefits from the compounds you're looking for some milk thistle has to be either

00:55:55.661 --> 00:56:02.740
a tincture like alcohol extract or more it has to be some kind of encapsulated form where it's been extracted in some in some way

00:56:02.629 --> 00:56:08.933
but yet there are lots of things you can do to support your liver and protect it and the good thing is even if you have liver damage.

00:56:09.029 --> 00:56:13.605
If the rest of your liver is not damaged so if you do get an ultrasound it's like oh we noticed some scarring

00:56:13.449 --> 00:56:26.901
that doesn't mean your entire liver is damaged I've seen folks have some scarring of the liver and they just have a normal lifespan is somebody who doesn't have scarring of the liver so your liver is really resilient it'll just kind of like offset the functionality to the rest of the liver that is helping so it's not the end of the world.

00:56:27.466 --> 00:56:35.337
More evidence that our bodies are amazing amazing like it's our bodies are working with us all the time.

00:56:35.343 --> 00:56:43.592
Yes yes but I left that to recap so Liver Health vitamin C zinc vitamin E and vitamin E yes.

00:56:43.724 --> 00:56:49.020
Burdock if we want to incorporate it milk thistle in a teen yeah so form.

00:56:49.521 --> 00:56:57.545
So doctor Asia this is probably been like one of the most jam-packed episode ever had but I.

00:56:57.569 --> 00:57:09.626
I loved every minute of it and I have see ya more things that I want to ask you but I also want to be cognizant of your time I just yeah about this and love the way you explain things

00:57:09.615 --> 00:57:18.575
yeah so before we go what can you share with us how you're currently finding your balance and what's keeping you in balance these days

00:57:18.401 --> 00:57:23.346
I like that question what keeps me imbalance is.

00:57:23.550 --> 00:57:33.392
Creative expression so I love the process or our ability as human beings to create you know like even just writing or even

00:57:33.363 --> 00:57:47.274
you know drawing or just some kind of creative process like that is what I thrive on even like switching out my plants and like putting a new dirt right so that's a creative process for me so I love any type of creative expressive process and

00:57:47.253 --> 00:57:55.286
I like eating food and shopping so that's kind of pretty much how I balance my stressful life which I don't really think it's stressed I think it's just life right.

00:57:56.768 --> 00:57:58.220
Now love all of.

00:57:58.290 --> 00:58:10.896
It's probably it's real basically I'm super basic I wish I could say like oh I you know meditate for two hours a day and I drink a gallon of Burdock tea it's like actually I don't do that pretty you know I plan to do basic

00:58:10.893 --> 00:58:16.909
I think basic means that it's effective it means very good I like it because it

00:58:16.807 --> 00:58:25.821
serves its purpose and that's right I'm here for that amazing so how could I audience keep in touch with you and keep learning from you

00:58:25.639 --> 00:58:36.093
yeah I'm just on Instagram I can't like really manage any other social media site at this point but I'm just on IG it's just dr. that Asia Muhammad

00:58:36.027 --> 00:58:37.344
muha.

00:58:37.360 --> 00:58:46.554
MMA D if you go to my Instagram as a link in my profile that links to my email subscription list you can subscribe there I'll be honest I'm not released a single email.

00:58:46.839 --> 00:58:59.571
This year but I'm hopefully that happens I have a lot of other projects that I'm working on so I plan to release my first email in June so I get on the list and you'll get an email in a couple months so yeah that's it.

00:58:59.667 --> 00:59:04.819
That's perfect but we'll have your Instagram you can do list Link in the show notes I also know that you have.

00:59:04.853 --> 00:59:18.449
Your tea blend you also have your evil yeah that's true versus so we will have those in the show notes as well thank you I appreciate it absolutely thank you so much for joining me today thanks for having me this is great

00:59:23.154 --> 00:59:31.052
like I said in the intro you're probably going to want to listen to this episode a few times to really soak in everything dr. Asia shared.

00:59:31.103 --> 00:59:38.929
Her content is incredible and so informative so if you aren't already following her on Instagram please make sure you do so

00:59:38.890 --> 00:59:46.473
we also have her information her resources Linked In the show notes so huge thanks to dr. Asia for joining me today.

00:59:46.677 --> 00:59:54.386
I do the show notes for more information about dr. Asia's offerings as well as discount codes and goodies from our brand partners.

00:59:54.671 --> 01:00:04.955
Huge thanks to our sponsors for supporting the show and thank you for tuning in today make sure you subscribe so you don't miss next week's installment of our modalities of healing.

01:00:05.040 --> 01:00:11.577
Music.